Dear Al Gore

I appreciate your stepping up, Al ...

I was the TA in one of your courses at Harvard, back then, helping the Deans Hunt and Phillips do their job. I follow your career and efforts with hope.

Change, as you call for it, change, as Senator Obama calls for it, CHANGE is not an illusive target. It accepts definition, specificity, and constant feedback loops. The forces to move public funds to private benefit are everywhere and entrenched in current government. To guard the public trust, build in the feedback loops.

Back in the 60s we struggled to make the clumsy computers support the inadequacies of human cognition and planning. Now that we have sufficient mechanical assistance and now that you and Senator BO (won't we have fun with his initials) show evolvement in ethical leadership, just now, I have a bit of hope, as with your career and mine, mixed with honest humility.

You could make a good VP this time. I am not letting you off a hook, not even for your recent advocacy of sane and cooperative world policies (there are a couple more areas you might address ... beyond pollution and human contribution to climate ... food, energy, weaponry, disease, health ... perhaps the greatest of these is to get away from layers of 19th Century misbereaucracy in governmental delivery systems ... that is health care cannot be solved by extending the disfunctional insurance system).

If you take the job, please consult with some of us outside your current scope of advisors. If you do not, please urge BO and associates to do so.

AND build in a structure of immediate, ongoing feedback loops. Individuals excel at decisions in context and at the moment. Upon reflection they utter increasing nonsense. It is so very different to play basketball than to comment on it the day after viewing it on TV.

Best Regards from Steven S Means
Director, Coos County Fairgrounds Museum
http://fgm.sworegon.org in http://sworegon.org
525 A House, Myrtle Point, OR97458
"The Border House"
541.260.1457 stevenmeans@mac.com
http://crashercat.com http://skipcancer.com
http://web.mac.com/stevenmeans